Veronica!

Sitting on the porch last nite,
Holding my guitar and the notes of a lullaby.
I was making sketches in the air,
Drawing a picture of you - singing and listening to me tonite.

Is it someone again or you are the name,
That i have held everything for Veronica
You leave me unheard, i sound so absurd,
And I don't want to wake up to this life again.

I expected in real life
something that was more than a dream
Your shawdow casts a spell on me
and i thought it was the start of the spring.

Then came the end and i don't pretend,
My story just chose a new start
Waiting again, frowning the end,
stalking the moment that made us fall apart.

Now i wait for you under this lonely moon.
The sketch is still incomplete
But i know one stroke of affection
and i will stop our hopes to deceit.

Veronica, turn back see through the words.
Those Carry a bag with the pieces of my wishes.
In the end, I just smile again, '
'coz one day i will grow out of me from these ashes.

*Veronica, is still a little upset with me, but i am sure she will make both of us proud one day.
Disclaimer: If you thought you are Veronica, then you might just be right!

Vengeance.

Pretty Girl, you know a bit too much about you.

Behind your face you hide a story so obvious.

I can read your twisted letters they aren't so decieving.

After all, you are flesh and bones, a creation of the living.

Fight it on, mocking me as if i am on the other side

Fuel your thoughts better and know about yourself.

I am a reflection to haunt you, if not now then some other time.

I will be kind to leave, but not unless i get there.

So you try, with some other guy

I will rewind, to the place i started.

All your hopes will wait for another day

You had your chance, now it's your turn to pay.

Pretty girl, this beauty is not permanent.

As the makeups wash away with time, you don't turn naive.

You have shown me a side of me, that i hate to morph in.

Turn me to my alter self to find a heartbeat that skipped in vain.

I am the one and i am the only one is a bit overrated,

You know it's a big world that we live in to pleasure our senses

There are pictures that fit better than you in them,

Try to look out, don't live in within yourself.

So you try, with some other guy

I will rewind, to the place i started.

All your hopes will wait for another day

You had your chance, now it's your turn to pay.

The thoughts of the author are based on real life experiences...Any resemblance of any kind is more than just a coincidence. Read your credit if you can spot that.

Miles to go before i sleep

...It was the Autumn of 1998, a heart was filled with Joy and anticipation. It was this time every year, when the trees used to change colors, when the birds were heard singing notes clearly and of course it was the time when a boy waited to get gifts from his relatives in the form of new clothing. He loved wearing clothes and it was only this time of the year that he could afford them. Every time he saw one, he would just draw portraits of himself in the air and fit himself in one of those Bollywood movies, the songs of which were never as romantic as right now. He knew that it was a hard fought battle in a place where even the leafs of the tree won't fly unless the wind comes and blows them away. It was a place where excitement had a limited meaning, where the biggest achievement in everyone's life was to inherit a Job for the Indian Railways from their parents.

For some weird reason, he did not strike a good balance with his friends. He always had a different opinion about everything, he had different choices. Bourne with insecurity, he thought that people did not like him much because of his 'Good Boy Attitude'. No use of abusive words, no distasteful talks that would make his mother angry, he would just stay away from all the 'fun' that his friends liked to do. He was a cricket fanatic. The days when he could come to know of an Indian match, he will have a sleepless night imagining how his favorite southpaw Saurav Ganguly would perform. He was growing up at a place where dreams were limited to a height and was definitely not about touching the sky...but he believed...

Coming back to Autumn of 1998, he had bought the cassette of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. How so ever, he hated Shahrukh Khan movies and wanted Salman Khan to be the bigger star, he would not hesitate to admit that he liked the way SRK romanced women in his movies. For a brief moment he would just wish to be like him. The 4 Cinema halls showing movies a few years back were reduced to only 3 and they showed movies atleast a month after their release. It was not worth the wait and the cable television would keep showing the dated movies from time to time. This box that many people call an Idiot Box, was the source of information for him. It opened the whole world's panoramic view in front of him. He would just love watching it, skipping his syllabus, skipping his meals. It was only this Television which taught him that Kolkata was a BIG city, where expensive cars whizzed by the road. In this town, he could only spot a Maruti 800 rarely.

Financially, he could manage a video game from his mother as his birthday gift. He was very hesitant in asking her but everytime he did, he was never denied. He would feel guilty of it, because he knew that it was not easy for her to buy such expensive stuff for him. . He had a bitter taste of the society in his mouth already and just kept dreaming of a day when he would just flee with his mother...

Today it's 17th March 2011, i am back in Alipurduar. The place where i grew up. The premise of the story is left unchanged. The trees look lifeless, people still have the same dream job. The displacement they have during their days is just as much as a walk to the nearest tree trunk to take out a bundle of cards. Teenagers still have a lot of angst in them and think themselves as great warriors if they could beat up the other guy. The Cinema halls are now reduced to 2 and they hardly show any movies other than that in Bengali. The cars are more visible, we see a Santro often. However, at night the only thing that breaks the silence of the darkness around is a whistle of a train. No one has moved in their lives, they look content, they look happy. I feel guilty that i am still not totally successful in my dream of taking my mom out of this place. She sleeps after a tiring days' of work with the television set on, if it was not for me, i wonder when she wakes up to turn it off on the other days. I want this to end badly. After 11 years since i left this place, i really cannot recognize myself as one of them...When i realize that i am wrong - my heart gets filled with pride...I just hum the lines that read...Miles to go before i sleep....

Sailing where my mind takes me now...

It was in the year 2001 when i realized for the first time that i should have a dream in my life...I wanted to sing...I remember the song - It's my life by Bon Jovi at that time and how i would visualize the video while taking the buses from Alipurduar to Coochbehar where i was studying in high school...The whole idea of a band came with our first performance on the annual day on 21st of April 2001 - Five of us on stage and No Matter What by Boyzone on the playlist...Little did i know that boy bands were cheesy back then...But that day did mark the start of day dreaming under the sun...Scrobling my thoughts down on a piece of paper as there were no laptops or computers back in those days...Capturing every bit of my imagination...Some of them could have actually lead to a homicide if read in detail.

I had no idea about what engineering is...until someone told me that i should go for IIT JEE(I refuse to take anybody's name in this post)...There was no reason for giving IIT, if it was not for music...I still cannot correlate the two things...Anyway...I don't regret my decision till today...Actually Engineering suited me...the engineering college..even more...from being a small town and an unknown face in the crowd to a popular name in college...It felt good when they gave me that watch...I must say, i have done well in my studies throughout my life other than the biggest setback i had during my class Xth board exams even after doing great in my pre-tests...Don't know what went wrong there...It just took away the confidence from my life for the next 3 years...

I was never a guy to boast about myself...I realized soon that in this world the fight is to become a good human being and networking with people is the best thing that can happen...I loved to talk and meet new people...Engineering got over and i got a job in Bangalore...Again little to the surprise of my destiny and without sparing a moment to connect the dots...I came here...Through out this whole time, my destiny was to become a musician...and i must say...i did not want to become a musician for myself...I wanted to play music to the world...I wanted people to hear me and only that could give me any pleasure...

The ship just sailed half sunk in water...Until, after 3 years and 7 months of being in Bangalore, i finally took a call about what i would want to do and how i would want to do....Sometimes the fight is so prolonged that you loose the sense of a comeback...rather comeback becomes an illusion...Today i know what can make me happy....I will keep playing music for the rest of my life and for that it is necessary that i take a break now...I am not hanging up my boots...I am just going into a hiatus...This time around, connecting the dots make a lot more sense because i just reversed my thought process...I have never been so determined ever...and i am sure i won't regret it.

Caught in the wrong Job

How many times did this thought cross your mind that – You are caught in a wrong job?

It’s funny how we all landed up where we are. It might be an easy guess that most of us are into what we are doing because it just happened to us. I might have been working my ass up into some other stuff given I did not have an engineering to do. 99% of the time you are either following the society or you are following your fate.

It aptly means that your interest towards doing what you are doing will die a slow death or you would be mostly bored at work like me.

I wonder what stops us from taking that step towards doing something that we really like to do. I guess the word is Courage. It’s hard to be a rebel in this world where everything is prototyped, where you are molded into a religion and mostly made a follower of some creed.

If we think a little then we would know that the rules of the society are made by arriving at an optimization that works the best for maintaining balance in the society. It is probably a set of rules which were made to give everyone a possession of their own. At the advent of the society – did we have a Hindu Follower, a muslim follower, a Jew, a Christian etc with each of them depicting their own theories of start of the universe? It doesn’t work that way – these are what you are made to think like. There are three important things by which every human being is controlled by that external body we call GOD…These are – Love and Lust. All the other feelings are derivatives of these two – be it sorrow or joy or anything else.

I have always been fascinated about knowing what happens to us when we die. But you see, this is a condition that can not be experienced unless it’s attained and neither can be copied from someone else’s– I wonder what science calls this state? From childhood, we have been made to think in shapes, boundaries, limits – so whatever we see around us – our brain always tries to confine it within a marked line. It maybe very analogous to think that the human brain functions like a computer program where if you input an infinite loop, it would have far widening implications that would create an imbalance in the system. Much like the same, our human brain has certain limitations and it is just not possible to go beyond it, but that also means that the reality is far widening then what we can think. We might be a part of a bigger ecosystem that we can’t figure out. Imagine the computer program. It only knows that there is a computer which contains many other computer programs inside it and everything is contained inside a PC analogous to what we call our UNIVERSE. This write up is evolving my thought process as I write further, probably for the good of it.

So now, imagine, what can a possible computer program do to sense a world which is beyond its existence. Cloud Computing? Interesting? Yes, the computer program can get to know about parallel Universes that exist by connecting through an external media called the Internet – which again is actually a computer program of its own. It’s funny how everything is recursive in life and everything eventually boils down to the state of singularity where everything was nothing but just ONE. But what happened to our quest to come out of the computer world and dive into a new world. I think by this time you have already figured out the problem of coming out of the Computer world – If the computer program comes out of the computer world then it would loose it’s identity of being a program. So the next thing to bother here is the change of states, but don’t worry, I won’t bother you much with that for this post atleast.

I think death is that phase where the change of state happens for a human being. This is the time when you go into a different dimension and loose your existing one. There are no rules followed as the ones that are followed in the existing world – a new beginning happens.

Now you would wonder how to co-relate the start of the post to where it went and where it is right now. I guess, the purpose of change of states is not an easy concept after allJ.

...Life moves on...

It's a mixed bag of emotions as i count the last remaining days with my first company - Wipro Technologies, Bangalore. I must confess that it has been one of the toughest decisions of my life to leave this organization and pursue an opportunity outside. When i look back - I probably don't see a grief or any sign of remorse...All i see are some unforgettable moments and memoirs that this company has given me for the past 3 years and 5 months.

23rd July 2007, a bunch of 10 people from HIT were given a joining under the header of Magnum Opus. 31st of July 2007 - we were deported to Bangalore and our 3 months mandatory training was waived off because we had done a project with the company during our final semester. Yes indeed, it was like a feeling of a Chosen One - but probably not for long. We had a 15 day extensive Java training - there were many names but one which stuck with me for all these years was definitely Anoop. We were assigned projects by 19th August 2007. I got lucky with the Nortel Networks account.

From that day till now - it has been one heck of a ride. There were times when i just wanted to give up and there were times when i could enjoy an unparalleled feeling of happiness. My most enjoyable tenure work wise was with the GNPS issues that i got a chance to resolve. These were challenging and also gave me the perfect blend to learn and get exposed to the world. I learned to interact with people who were not of our culture and felt being responsible. Yes, i would probably take Chethan Mangalore's name right at the beginning before anyone else who have supervised me for in my present organization. I think as a reportee the best joy is to see people having faith in you, Chethan did just that. It gave me whole new confidence in dealing with things in life. No prizes for guessing but he gave me the opportunity to travel outside my home country too. Gaurav has been my mentor from almost the start of my career and i still take his opinions on things which are related my professional career. Well not to mention the fun i have had in conducting games or participating in one to make the work place more happening.

Speaking of onsite, Canada was a life changing one for me. So many of them out there in Canada who just gave me the love that i honestly never expected. I feel proud to say that i was one of those of lucky ones who found home out of home and where people really wanted me to come back again. What can be more saddening than leaving a part of me there with the uncertainity that it maybe really long before i see them again...It was like India there, it was like college and i felt people around the world are no different than us or we are no different than them. One random line that probably means a lot more than JUST being a line is this - Shaiju K, you are the best manager (not just a people manager) i have worked with/seen so far in my life...not to mention about the opportunities that became reality because of you. I learned a lot from you and would always be in touch!

I was lucky enough to visit Canada for the second time and it just showed me how people can be really welcoming to you - if you really know how to talk and acknowledge. Personally it was a great achievement because i thought i broke a lot of myths about Indians - yeah Russell we do have stereotypes but then if they were not there - you would be unemployed right now.

Getting back to India - Ah! What should i say...So many friends in Wipro as i leave...maybe i should take a breather and take all of their names who would remain as buddies even outside the organization - Tej, Shrikant, Santhosh, Sandeep S, Shyami, Raka, Sony...and recently - Umesh, Sundeep, Jyoti, Usha, Shuhaibu, Krishna, Sristy, Priyanka, Sai, Aruna and so many of them...You know the secret of having so many friends is by treating each one of them specially...but the place where i met with these wonderful people is at Wipro. I should not skip to mention Mahesh and Kiran too - you guys are more than managers for people. Also, the one Bengali who gave me all the confidence and also who made me feel that i was special - Mr. Sabyasachi Malakar. Also it's a necessity to mention Selva's name who was my first mentor and is a wonderful guide even till date. Gautam - i don't hesitate to say this that you are the most underrated person i have ever met in terms of programming ability...I know you would achieve a lot. Savitha and Sangeetha will always remain like those two cute seniors whom i always loved getting my legs pulled by.

I know my days are numbered and it would be a long walk on the 20th of December out of the Wipro Campus. Many asked me the reason - why i wanted to quit and till this night - i don't have a specific reason. I did not hate my managers - i loved each one of them i worked with. I did not crib for onsites they came to me, i did not ask for band progression they happened...But i think we all need to move on in life to an uncertain world at some point of time - forgetting our fear...where it might just be a new beginning...

All my gratitude to Wipro Tech, i wish the organization - all the very best and the people working for it or who have worked for it. It's hard to say a goodbye but probably it's for a comeback....The earth is round and Well you never know!!!

Cheers!

Why Indian Rock doesn't really know to Rock yet!

So i decided to write up something which has been a subject of close study for me. I have been in and out of it and then again back into it, but the reality is, no matter how much we raise the devil's horn, no matter how much we get wasted over a dope, no matter how much we learn to swear...India is far far behind in the Modern Rock Scene for getting any international attention what so ever. So sit back and read on as i try to dig in the causes and quest for a possible change.

The definition of Rock has changed over a period of time. No matter how you think the true ROCK was played in the 70's and 80's..Let's face it, it doesn't sale anymore now. Rock music had to evolve to compete with the ever increasing popularity of the R n B and Hip Hop artist. This is no longer a generation of the tough and the wasted. The new generation in the west wants to be cool and not rough. R n B and Hip Hop offers the same to them. It never made sense to me to listen to a Black Eyed Peas and spit out lyrics that don't have a head or tail but let's face it - They are cool. What did rock do to save it's fate in the hands of these elements - It evolved to something called - Alternative Rock. A genre which i have hurdled to define forever. The best way to describe is probably to think it of as something that you cannot classify into one specific genre of Rock music. No matter how much you debate over it but this is the only surviving form - which of course draws heavy influences from Pop music. Standard Chord sequences that have been played a million times in zillions of songs are arranged and treated to give you that sound that appeals to the radio.

Despite this try, i have struggled for one Rock station in Canada. Be it Montreal or be Ottawa - even if you get through one, none of them play classic rock any more. Gone are the days when a BJ or a G n R would rule the Billboard Hot 100 singles. When was the last time, a out n out rock number was on the number 1 spot? - Hard to remember. But still we have the Modern Rock Charts and we have our own favorites there holding onto a league of their own - but mind it, again, no classic Rock here.

Now let us shift the paradigm to India, as this post mostly deals with the scene in India, well ideally it should. I have been to uncountable Rock shows in India. We are at the mercy of Hip Hop still, that it hasn't caught up like a fire unlike in the west. A guy picks up the guitar mostly in the first or second year of college, gets his buddies, some of them he thinks has a sense for music and some of them are these cool dudes, who are his close friends - forms a band and the next thing you learn about them is that they probably hardly know how to ROCK but they do know all the gimmicks from the old School Rock musicians, they have seen the video of. A innocent crowd stares on and some out of them snap in alcohol abuse and starts spitting words of worship to the guys on stage. The third guy, who has no clue about what's going on the stage, gets influenced by this guy and follows him in raising his different finger patterns as that makes him look hardcore too. I hate to say this, but Rock has not been the thing about being COOL - which we take it as in India. No matter how much we deny it, but Rock has been dominated by the skin color and the accent - though we can correct the accent but the color? So the brown guy lands up in total confusion - because he neither can follow Hip hop because that's Just about too Cool for him to handle and finds doping an easier solution to his desire of being the Rough n Tough guy - on broader picture - he gets a solution to be different amongst the mass which listens to Bollywood songs.

With that being said - i am sure most of you have been to the Rock shows in India and you already know that you have nothing more to expect than probably 10 songs that get repeat played in every single show you go to. We are still living 15 years back - when the world has actually leaped forward to a new genre. The fact remains, like you can probably think that there can be no one playing the Indian music better than someone like A R Rahman in the west, similarly, it's hard to imagine someone from India to play something which is their music. The inception is not from us - but who said we have to incept to be successful. Hell India did not invent the computers - but leveraged the most out of it. So time now to think a little serious about what we lack primarily.

The first thing that definitely lacks in our bands is Originality - I know most of you know about it already as it might have been spoken out by so many Indian Rock Music Freelancers (well they hardly make money out of a permanent job doing this) - which actually leads us to the next point - lack of support. You know why we lack support - because it doesn't draw any money for any one. That leads to the third point - Bollywood. No matter how much you think yourself as Cool when you say that Bollywood music sucks - don't deny the fact that it identifies the Indian Culture - what we do wrong by being a Rock musician is - we try to steal the market from Bollywood rather than creating one from ourselves. Which brings us to the fourth point - lack of money. Let's face the facts - India is a developing country - we have still 70% of the population struggling for food - all of you reading this post belong to that 30% and for whom life is a smooth sail from the basic amenities perspective. Rock has been predominantly a DEVELOPED nation thing. Again deny it or face the truth. What we do know is that - we don't have a K'naan singing a song called Waving Flag from India about the poor people dying here rather than in Somalia - I am sure we would out number them any day. Of course the reason is - that 30% actually wanted to be Cool and i don't want to repeat myself about why they thought that Rock Music was the coolest thing to do.

Probably this post will go down the garbage and would be lost in the ever passing time but i would quest for a solution and i would do that right now. It's to the rock musicians of our country - It ain't gonna work if you copy the lifestyles of Rock musicians from the west. You would always end up seeing those 10 faces in the crowd that follows your band for all of your shows, who would cheer for you. India's definition of a Rockstar is entirely different - It will not work or fetch the things that Nickelback would sing in their modern day sale out song either. You cannot imagine yourself as a God once you land up on a stage and play the fastest riff in the world that annoys more people than what they would want to hear. The advice is, be a common man - don't compete to be the celebrities. Go back to your Jam room and bring out that creative talent in you rather than following someone else's foot steps to make something original. Err...hold on...that is not it, if you want to really see an Indian song do good - make it a little more of this age rather than staying up in the late 80's and smoking weed. Make even the one off show that you get - a grand event to watch. Show the media that you can make the money meter roll. Recognize your market, do not try to think that you can work in the WEST and the WEST is always the coolest place to boast about if you've got a show to play in the UK - no one remembers what happens after that one off show - so don't fly rather leverage it.

It's strange that i look down upon me and i find that i too struggle to accept the reality at times. Remember, Jai ho, was playing on all radio stations in Canada - even though it was an Indian Composition - maybe nice time to have a Rock song do like that - out of all the discouragement in the post so far - Take my words for it - people would be stunned here. Bottom line is - you have to make people believe that you can really make a business out of your music - else get ready to hold on to your passion and let it die a slow death - even before you have a clue about it. Until the next time. Adios!